It is a trap and not a joke. The NDP have never left less government debt in their terms of office. Provinces like Saskatchewan have 11 billion dollars in debt. While that many not sound like much, they have less than 1 million people to support it. They love credit spending like no other.

Most experienced Canadians know NDP as socialists. Nationalization is a key plug of theirs.

Laytoon would say anything to get elected be he mean it or not. World readers need to know it is routine that Canadian cand

Except of course for the Alberta Progressive Conservative party, which reduced taxes, eliminated the deficit AND the provincial debt (it is now completely gone).

What the USA calls "right-wing" may not act like it at all, but in Canada generally fiscal conservatism means such, because we have an actual example of such that happened, not just theory like down south.

Oh yea, the Alberta Conservatives were, in their great, millions of years spanning foresight, entirely responsible for putting all that oil in all that sand in Alberta and then for driving global oil prices through the roof only so that they can rake in billions in royalties... no?

But then again this is, and has always been, on par for the so-called "Conservatives" world-wide: take with great fanfare all credit for things you had absolutely nothing to do with, while at the same time trying to project blame for everything you've fucked up onto others.

Try BC then. The BC Liberal party (made up entirely of former social credit conservatives) inherited a province from the NDP that was doing poorly economically yet managed to both put the economy back on track and balance the budget.

Except of course for the Alberta Progressive Conservative party, which reduced taxes, eliminated the deficit AND the provincial debt (it is now completely gone).

I know a few people who live in Alberta, from what they tell me, this wasn't some Conservative 'just as planned...' scheme. [How could the have predicted the jump in oil prices?] This was pure blind luck. Alberta was spending too much money a while back, and needed some major cutbacks to be made so that the province wasn't digging itself into a hole. As the years went on after these cutbacks, the increasing price in oil kick started the Albertan economy into high-gear.

Except of course for the Alberta Progressive Conservative party, which reduced taxes, eliminated the deficit AND the provincial debt (it is now completely gone).

All Alberta did was elect two successive by the people representatives as our leaders. Yes, I live in Alberta. Neither Klein nor successor Stelmach are professional politicians, both came from the working class from their successful stints in real careers. That is, they are not in-the-pocket of vested interests behind the scenes. When Klein got in, he spent the first 6 months on a hack and burn of government waste and excess. Civil service people still scream at this government overhaul event as the provincial debt was increasing.

Alberta voters tend to be smarter and avoided the liberal left promise of stars, spending and statist government at our, taxpayers expense. People here know when a candidate promises something they intuitively think, how is it going to be paid for?

While some say it is oil, they are over stating the facts. Klein did this before oil was lucrative and only $20/barrel and the industry was barely hanging on. And in lucrative times, the government piggy banked the increased revenue money which reduces taxes in a sound sustainable way.

It does not take long to turn around a out of control government, just a decent, honest, practical politician with lots of power that isn't doing the job for self ego. Even on Klein's last days, he would sit down with normal people and say hello.

What the USA calls "right-wing" may not act like it at all, but in Canada generally fiscal conservatism means such, because we have an actual example of such that happened, not just theory like down south.

We will see in the next few weeks. Canada's currency took a wild dip as the government is ailing out the banks too. Fiat currency management is on both sides of the border, they are not overlooking the Bank of Canada's propensity to create fiat money.

Alberta is a fucked up case. It's another Sydney, Nova Scotia in the making. We're getting fucked.

We could have all those young people working building renewable energy structures, like hydro projects and tidal power generation. Instead, they're selling out our future to keep the American demand for oil slaked. They're dumping money into a highly overinflated housing market, going into ridiculous levels of debt, and long before they're ready to retire, the place will be a dead town, with no industry to

Well, given the history of Alberta's deficits and debt, I'd have to say that, no, we had sober monkeys run us into the ground in the first place. It may have required some drunkenness to get us out.

And Klein did that *before* oil hit $80 a barrel. It required fiscal conservatism, and, oddly enough, not only did Klein run on a platform of erasing the debt, he actually fulfilled all his major promises (and most of his minor promises). Not too many Canadian governments have done that (Conservative or Libera

$11 Billion divided among 1 Million people is more like $11,000 per person.

The example he is using is for the debt created in one province by a provincial political party. The equivalent of the debt of a state in the U.S. - is it really common in the U.S. to see state debt at $11,000/person?

The left of center governments in Canada typically create huge debt while the right of center governments create smaller debt. The previous left of center federal government (known as the "Liberals") ran up a huge d

Both of them left their respective governments deep in debt. It was the Liberals who came in and stopped the debt from ballooning out of control in Canada. And it is the current minority Conservative government that has started running deficits again.

Provincially, Devine left Saskatchewan in a ridiculous pile of debt. The "left wing" NDP party came in and straigh

Growing up, my examples of "right wing" financial dealing involved Brian Mulroney as Prime Minister and Grant Devine as Premier of Saskatchewan.
Both of them left their respective governments deep in debt. It was the Liberals who came in and stopped the debt from ballooning out of control in Canada.

You should have looked to provinces further West where the story was the opposite - left wing governments running up huge debt and right wing governments getting it under control. For example BC where the gros

Please - the Conservatives are not "pissing" the surplus away; they are paying down debt - over 37 billion. If you assume a 5% interest rate (which is the average rate the government pays), that saves $1.85 billion in interest, which the Tories have said would all be returned to taxpayers via tax cuts. This is in tremendous contrast to the US, where the national debt recently hit $10 trillion. US GDP is about $13 trillion. In contrast, federal government debt in Canada is only $450 billion, or about 1/3 of

A quick note about US debt and Canadian debt that once accounted for show a very similar amount of debt per capita. In fact, considering provincial debt in Ontario and Quebec as part of a total debt load many Canadians are at least as hit by government debt. Here are the items.

The US accounts for projected shortfalls in Social Security as debt with a an entry on the books for it. Canada does not include this in their debt situation. While Canada does actually have a CPP reserve, it is short. Last I co

Oh please. The liberals ran up huge deficits and only started addressing the issue when public sentiment forced it. Yes - they did indeed then start running huge surpluses - not hard to do when you overestimate costs, overtax the populace to cover the predicted costs and then declare a surplus when the costs don't materialize. A surplus means people paid too much tax.

To quote the article you reference:
Canada posted a record budget surplus of C$13.8bn last year, allowing Ottawa to reduce its debt ratio t

Well your statements are incorrect about the Alberta and British Columbia governments at the very least. They may be wrong about other provincial governments as well - I don't know as I don't have the facts handy but since you are wrong at least twice I'll safely assume I shouldn't trust you to be right in the case of the others.

And while I was no fan of the Mulroney Conservative government it was the Liberals who ran the debt to GDP ratio up to its historical high - years after the Conservatives left powe

Why is that - are you making bigoted assumptions because I posted some actual factual information about completely unrelated issues? It's a sleazy, underhanded and frankly dishonest tactic and in trying it you do no favour to yourself or to any party you support... quite the contrary in fact.

Why? Because it's entirely relevant, yet controversial at the same time. It was interesting that it was left out. Either you agree with the idea or not, but either way it was $1B unwisely spent by the Liberals.

look pal, youre the only continent that is stuck with that mccarthian scarecrowing shit about left.

Ah, managed to get a NDiaPer to wake up.

entire europe is on social democracy, and it already got past north america in terms of economy and life standard, - hell, in every aspect of life.

Then you should move there. When I lived/worked in Europe the pay for the locals, well, wasn't good. And taxes, whew....great cultural place to visit but no want to live there unless I was filthy rich.

get this shit into your head -> in life EVERYthing needs BALANCE. without balance, everything flops. economy is not exempt from this basic rule.

Yes, everything needs a balance. It is also why the NDP are out of balance. They have great talk, lovely ideas, promise the moon. And it works great until the credit card comes past due. The balance for an NDP is credit runs out.

The NDP have never left less government debt in their terms of office.

Of course, Gary Doer [wikipedia.org] in Manitoba has had a balanced budget every year for the last decade, as well as creating a rainy-day fund of hundreds of millions, but don't let that stop you from making black and white statements.

Laytoon[sic] would say anything to get elected [whether] he mean[t] it or not. World readers need to know it is routine that Canadian candidates lie often.

AFAICT, that's par for the course in Canada, the US, and the UK, and I suspect pretty much every other democracy. The Liberals did fairly well during the election a few years ago in part due to Sheila Copps promising to do away with the GST, and we all know how well that turned out. The Co

Absolutely true. I would also offer up the example of the BC NDP party, and the unbelievably poor state in which they left this province. The NDP are fundamentally corrupt because of their close ties to the trade unions.

They would be the party that held bingo games purportedly for charity but the money ended up paying for NDP expenses. And they had the Premier who was quoted as saying "It's like we're shovelling money off the back of a truck!"

Poor state?! Look what the Liberals ended up doing: A Carbon Tax! I laugh at all the conservatives who voted for 'em. They same ones who are wining about the ferry prices after the Libs went and Privatized it(!?).
Yes the BC-NDP were a little too close to the unions, but the unions are dying off now.
What we really need is an NDP-LIB merger. Or, even better a new party positioned between the two on the electoral spectrum. Fuck Harper.

If the first was a lie then you could have easily disproven it by giving an example of an NDP government that left office with less government debt than when they took office. As to the second I agree that government ownership is frequently a plank of the NDP platform - they've downplayed it for a long time now because they realize how unpopular it was.

I have to admit I am no political guru but when you look at a party who actually has plans, advocates them well, has a leader who communicates fluently and can debate smartly I wonder why these guys haven't had better numbers. I suppose it is because Jack Layton doesn't attack the other parties in the media like the other leaders so the majority of voters seems to overlook them. He is simply not in the press shouting about a past scandal or taxes.

OMG - get your tv fixed! It's filtering out all those NDP ads attacking other parties! It must have also filtered out the televised debates where the NDP leader was attacking the Conservative leader!

The funny thing is that watching the debates the only leader who looked like a real competitor to Mr. Harper was Mr. Duceppe, who was passionate and obviously intelligent. It's too bad his party is based on breaking up Canada into two independent countries.

Actually... As much as I agree with his tech views. Most of his plans are completely idealistic and borderline delusional. The leader is also a scummy politician. After a while you will see that he is an opportunist that only cares about what the media will give out and not the actual issues and doesn't take the time to try to explain a in depth analysis and how to actually solve it. Instead he spews populist jib jab on most topics. The only reason he is getting this right is because of Charlie Angus one of

Most of his plans are completely idealistic and borderline delusional.

I don't know about that - although I haven't read anything in-depth, the cursory readings seem OK. Can you provide some examples?

The leader is also a scummy politician.

On this, I wholeheartedly agree with you. While well-spoken, he's a sociopath who refuses to accept responsibility for his own actions, and tries to take credit for the work of others (besides being prone to hyperbole.)

Examples: The last election was triggered when the NDP (led by Layton) voted non-confidence against a Liberal finance bill. The election happened over the holid

This is the problem I have with Canadians. The Chretien Liberals were definitely corrupt, and definitely needed a time-out. So what did we, the Canadian people, do to punish them for their corruption? We inflicted Stephen Harper on ourselves -- not to mention such gems as Stockwell Day, Jason Kenney, and Maxime Bernier (at least he's out of the picture now).

Today's Liberal party is mostly devoid of the people who were involved in the Sponsorship scandal. Sure, Dion seems a little weak, but have you seen Ste

And you make it sound as if Canada was on the verge of destruction when Stephen Harper came along and magically turned everything to gold with his impotent minority government.

The truth is, Canada was in great shape before the Conservatives came to power, and it will remain in great shape no matter who wins this election. The Conservatives are dangerously wrong on far too many issues to allow them to maintain the little power they have, or worse yet, to actually gain more power through a majority government

He's a smart guy but unfortunately the language barrier is a bit of an issue and one which the Conservatives are quite prepared to mock him for. (To their discredit)

Oh please - the French press didn't crucify Joe Clark for his lousy French? Even the English papers typically prefaced any mention of his French with "awkward" or "clumsy". And Dion doesn't appear all that bright to me - his "Green Shift" is a ridiculous policy - and in a widely distributed clip of his appearance on ATV, he didn't understand

On this, I wholeheartedly agree with you. While well-spoken, he's a sociopath who refuses to accept responsibility for his own actions, and tries to take credit for the work of others (besides being prone to hyperbole.)

Sociopath? Maybe... he does kind of make my skin crawl when I watch him speak... there's definitely something off about about him.

Oh, please. Don't you see Layton's TV ads where he claims he will hire 1,000 doctors? Forget that health care is a provincial matter; just remember it takes 7 years to train a doctor, so building new spaces at universities (Layton's "plan") won't have any effect until 2015.
The Tories have a much more practical plan. They will make it easier for foreign professionals to have their credentials recognized. That will increase the number of new doctors almost immediately, and it doesn't cost as much.

Again with the co-op smear. The way a housing co-op works is high income residents pay much higher rent so that low income residents don't have to pay as much. That way, it doesn't have to be subsidized by government at all. Either you don't understand how a housing co-op works or don't care. This smear was discredited more than a decade ago. When raised now it just illustrates the ignorance of the person who is repeating it.

I agree that he's a 'scummy politician.' He's considerably pandering to what Joe Every-man wants, without considering or acknowledging the economic side effects or tax requirements. He might come off as honest to some, but I see a man taking advantage of every situation, and saying what people want to hear.

I've been a Liberal party supporter my entire life. It ended the day the walked out on the omnibus crime bill vote to prevent the government from falling.

I always like Jack Layton but I didn't spend much time reviewing his party, their voting record, or his speeches. After I decided to avoid the Liberals last year (or earlier this year.. can't remember) I started doing some real research. And I have to say, he is the first politician (at that level) I've actually admired. He speaks with a level of candor and immense credibility that is so rare.

He seems to genuinely care about his fellow man, and want to solve conflicts rather than fan the flames.

In short, he's precisely the opposite of this neocon wannabe we currently have running the country. Jack, if you happen to be reading this (and it wouldn't surprise me) you've got my vote.:)

I too am a long-time liberal (but just because we have a liberal MP and MPPs) and love Jack Layton.

I don't like the NDP (sorry, too socialist for me) but he is an honest, hard-working man. I never liked him before because during the debates in the last elections he was constantly going on "Oh vote NDP we're different we're better!" etc. While watching the french debates (I was planning on watching Joe Biden beat up Palin) though he changed for the better; although he's no Duceppe in terms of slamming everyo

Bollocks. He lived in a mixed income co-operative housing unit that uses the higher rent charged to high-income earners to subsidize the costs of the lower-income units. It was not government subsidized housing. In fact, the housing unit would have failed financially if there were no higher income earners living there. You clearly have no understanding of how mixed incoming cooperative housing actually works, or you're just trying to toss an already much-discredited 15 year old smear with no basis in reality.

You mean to tell me that Mr. Laton is not picking items out of the other two leaders pasts and using them out of context and applying inuendo in order to discredit them. I sugest that you watch a few of the NDP ads and liten ot his retoric.

He is a very sincere and genuine leader who I would really love to lead our country.

It's too bad though that his party's platform is so far out in left field that it scares me. Some good ideas in there, such as their technology platform in general. But their protectionist policies would pretty much destroy our economy, including lending support (using my tax dollars) to unsustainable and uneconomical jobs for Canadian autoworkers, ending the North American Free Trade Agreement, and generally throwing money

He seems to genuinely care about his fellow man, and wants to solve conflicts rather than fan the flames.

Jack is nothing more than a walking soundbite. I lost any respect I had for him last election when he made a big show of handing a coin to a pan handler. As someone who has actually worked with street people I can tell you that the absolute worst thing you can do for them is give them money.

And if he really was about solving conflicts he would not be so eager to accuse his opponents of "hidden agenda

As evidenced by the fact that it's clear, particularly after the debate, that his economic policies are to just let things kinda tick along and let whatever happens happen.

I agree about May, though. I think she was one of the best performing politicians in the debate (specifically the English language debate, which is the one I watched). Layton, by contrast, spent the entire time doing his best to paint Harper as the spawn of the devil, and neglected to

As evidenced by the fact that it's clear, particularly after the debate, that his economic policies are to just let things kinda tick along and let whatever happens happen.

Part of letting things tick along is letting the Bank Of Canada do its job the way it is intended to do - such as putting out a 0.5% drop in the bank rate which was coordinated with the equivalent entities in other countries doing the same.

I agree about May, though. I think she was one of the best performing politicians in the debate

Not a chance - she was rude, hectoring, and constantly interrupting Harper. Harper, in contrast, was polite, and calm. I thought the purpose of a debate was to give one person the right to speak at any time, and since I was on my debating team at high school, I know whereof I speak. The three wannabes were all terrible. Duceppe actually impressed me; it's too bad he wants to break up the country.

Not a chance - she was rude, hectoring, and constantly interrupting Harper.

Yeah, I agree. But IMHO, she also came across as informed and educated. She was one of the few that actually cited numbers and real evidence, both when attacking her opponents and supporting her own positions.

Then again, in that group, that's really damning with faint praise...

In contrast, while Harper certainly came across as calm, I also thought he came across as superficial... he had a tough time defending his non-interventioni

Yeah... in the end, she basically said "no", but I suspect that's not what her base actually wants to hear.

It's no different than the debate moderator (who's name escapes me) asking Harper if he'd vow to never raise taxes. Harper dilly-dallied over that question and never really answered it because, guess what, he *can't* say "yes", even if his electorate wants him to.

Bush third term? Blatant Obama ripoff. Never mind that the GOP considers Canadian conservatives to be too liberal for their taste.

What is stupid about putting a cost on emitting CO2? Currently the emitters benefit from being able to emit CO2 but the costs are felt by everyone. This is privatized gain with socialized risk. Putting a cost on emitting CO2 helps to eliminate this moral hazard.

The problem with Layton is his stance on the welfare state: I'm all for free health care, higher taxes for the rich, social safety nets - but his policies punish people who work and earn their achievements. He would limit education scholarships and make them taxable and simultaneously dump more money into disabilities and unemployment welfare. I think people should have a safety net if they become incapacitated but it needs to be genuine. I know quite a few people on disability, and they deserve nothing the

I started doing some real research. And I have to say, he is the first politician (at that level) I've actually admired.

Then either your research is poor, or you're easily swayed by emotion rather than logic.

He speaks with a level of candor and immense credibility that is so rare.

Credibility?!?! OK, you really haven't done any research. He's prone to hyperbole ("Harper wants to quit his job as PM") and can't accept responsibility for his own actions. ("It's not my fault - the Liberals *made* me do it!")

Generally speaking any party that has words 'democratic' or 'national' or 'communist' or 'socialist' is puke to me, I was born in the former Soviet Ukraine.

Specifically it looks extremely ridiculous to me that a person who has never had a real job except of being a career politician (from a family of career politicians no less) talks about the underprivileged and the poor of the society. Layton is against a 2tiered health care system yet he used private health care himself.

Hey, I'm completely opposed to GWB and his pals, including this $700B bailout. If people want to be greedy, they should pay the consequences. It's absolutely despicable that taxpayers are on the hook for stupid people who bought houses they couldn't afford and for greedy investment bankers.
Just because I oppose the NDP doesn't mean I'm for the neocons.

I voted Green in advanced polling. It makes so much sense to me to move the tax burden from what's good in society to what's bad in society: reduce income and corporate taxes and tax pollution instead. This not only increases the reward for productive effort while discouraging negative activity, it also encourage the economy to become more efficient and thus more competitive.

The NDP is pretty tech savvy usually. They have two other platform points that are interesting, although populist:

Ban bank fees for using competing banks ATMs. Canadian banks are much larger than their american counterparts, and are more profitable. The mortgage crisis here has been avoided due to more goverment regulation, and the banks are expected to continue to profit at the expense of poorer people who are hit with elevated service charges. Bank fees on ATMs stiffle competition by encouraging peopl

Um, Canadian banks are larger than the American ones? Don't tell the people at Citi, or JPMorgan Chase, or Bank of America, or any of the other three US banks that are larger than Royal, Canada's biggest bank. Citi had revenues of $131 billion in 2006, while Royal had revenues of $24 billion. That's less than 20% of Citi's take.

And the reason we're not having a mortgage crisis is most people still get their mortgages from the banks, who expect to be repaid. In the US, the creation of CDO's spurred the gr

Raising corporate taxes from 22% up to 30% as we get sucked into the US made financial crisis would make us so uncompetitive. He promises to do this to raise money for his child benefit plan. But we won't need his child care plan, we'll be stuck at home all day with the kids without jobs.

Layton was doing well in the polls (for the NDP)... right up to the day the official NDP platform was released and Canadians let out a collective WTFOMGRUN !!!

The thing I'm finding with Layton's NDP is they're saying a lot of things that make sense, things that would benefit society at large, but they are the ONLY ones making such promises. This begs the question of how are they going to make it all happen ? The answer is: they aren't.

I don't think anyone is remotely concerned about the NDP winning the federal election. The NDP excels as being the 3rd wheel in minority governments, as they proved back in the Trudeau years. For that reason, it is highly unlike

Maybe not ready for primetime but would be nice to see him as leader of the opposition in a minority government.
I just can't respect Dion for abstaining from so many votes in the last parliament, basically giving the Tories an effective Majority. Harper backed him in a corner many times, just daring him to bring down the government and trigger an election. What did he do? He stuck his head in the sand instead of doing the right thing and taking Harper on like a man. Shameful and not worthy of running o

Full disclosure, I was heavily leaning toward voting NDP anyway, but this has won me over. While there's a little bit of me that considers that this may just be pandering, I think Jack Layton would make a great leader, I agree with just about all of their policies, and I think that they tap into what most Canadians want from their government.

If you saw the debate a while back, it was pretty much Harper attacking and everyone else attacking back, but Layton seemed to have the most concrete plans and platfor

People seem to have very distorted memories when it comes to Rae's government in the early 90s. The NDP took over just as the economy was heading into the worst recession since the great depression. His government did what pretty much every other government does in a recession - increase spending to break the cycle. I seriously doubt the Liberals would have done anything different. If Rae did anything wrong, it was to neglect his main support on the left with his wage cuts and mandatory unpaid vacation meas

I'm sorry but this is Canada, and so far no SINGLE MAN can be responsible for wrecking the country. Though that might change if Harper keeps spending. Give me a few actually reasons to believe you and I'll reconsider my opinion.

Right now we have a government doing a lot a business with a country that isn't doing well and what do we get? Nothing but a sinking dollar, the US is a sinking ship and we keep investing towards them. If the Conversative government had balls it would be making Canada more of a po

That's got nothing to do with Harper or the Conservatives - it has been the problem with every federal government for decades. Canada has an economy almost totally tied to one other country. It has always needed to diversify and generate more trade with other countries. Mind you that wouldn't have done much good with the current situation - since every country seems to be going into the tank Canada's position as an exporter would be done in no matter what this time around. Canada is in a good situation rela